If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Ben Emmerson wants to be clear: He’s not out to ban flying killer robots used by the CIA or the U.S. military. But the 49-year-old British lawyer is about to become the bane of the drones’ existence, thanks to the United Nations inquiry he launched last week into their deadly operations.

Emmerson, the United Nations’ special rapporteur for human rights and counterterrorism, will spend the next five months doing something the Obama administration has thoroughly resisted: unearthing the dirty secrets of a global counterterrorism campaign that largely relies on rapidly proliferating drone technology. Announced on Thursday in London, it’s the first international inquiry into the drone program, and one that carries the imprimatur of the world body. By the next session of the United Nations in the fall, Emmerson hopes to provide the General Assembly with an report on 25 drone strikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Palestine where civilian deaths are credibly alleged.

That carries the possibility of a reckoning with the human damage left by drones, the first such witnessing by the international community. Accountability, Emmerson tells Danger Room in a Monday phone interview, “is the central purpose of the report.” He’s not shying away from the possibility of digging up evidence of “war crimes,” should the facts point in that direction. But despite the Obama administration’s secrecy about the drone strikes to date, he’s optimistic that the world’s foremost users of lethal drone tech will cooperate with him.

In conversation, Emmerson, who’s served as special rapporteur since 2011, doesn’t sound like a drone opponent or a drone skeptic. He sounds more like a drone realist. “Let’s face it, they’re here to stay,” he says, shortly after pausing to charge his cellphone during a trip to New York to prep for his inquiry. “This technology, as I say, is a reality. It is cheap, both in economic terms and in the risk to the lives of the service personnel who are from the sending state....>>MORE

My, my how things have changed! President Bush's use of drones = war crimes. Obama's use of same = ...crickets? And I forsee a pizza in the OP's future for daring to mention The Won's drone war. Interesting...not one reponse to the OP on DU so far at the time of posting this here.

Update. Still not one response on DU. I can only imagine how hot the thread would be if President Bush were still in office. The hypocrisy is truly sickening.

I don't recall the UN being very supportive to us after 9/11. Apparently, drones are worse than flying manned civilian aircraft into targets.

If I'm not mistaken I read a story recently that the UN was requesting drones.

Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil;Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness;Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!21 Woe to those who are wise in their own eyesAnd clever in their own sight! Isaiah 5:20-21 NASB

Or do they back Barry which means they support his clandestine, I'll do what I want without Congress approval and just target kill indiscriminately at will. Oh noes noes.

No wonder why the thread has zero replies. Heads are 'sploding with every click of the thread. 8 hours old, 100+ views and no replies. LMAO.

Keep on killing Barry, keep on killing. Even if they are American citizens (which hasn't stopped you), keep on killing. Rain that hellfire from above. hahahahaha. This guy does shit even Bushitler didn't do.

They won't use them. Drone's can't traffic women and children, extort sex from them and otherwise do the things that we've come to associate with UN Peacekeepers.

It's also much harder to enrich oneself and family from kickbacks out of a one- or two-line-item contract for drone services than to get it from all the logistics contracts a large ground force of third world military ne'er-do-wells would require.